


How can I live when you are gone?

by emptymasks



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Night Terrors, Nightmares, POV First Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Present Tense, Sort Of, Survivor Guilt, depends on how optimistic you are, slight marius/enjorlas if you squint if thats a thing idk if it is but i guess im making it one now?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25231081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptymasks/pseuds/emptymasks
Summary: Everything runs red. Red, our desire and our love now running and trodden through in the gutter, between the cobblestones. Red, the flag is torn to shreds. Red, the blood sweeps through our waistcoats. Red, Enjorlas topples lifelessly over the barricade. Once so full of life, glory and determination never leaving his eyes as his hair bounced in the wind and his smile was wild and inspired every one of us. Enjorlas, my dear friend... my friend... my friends...My fingers clutch at the sheets and pull them to my chest, against my skin and ribs and my heart beating out of my chest. And I curl in on myself. My legs thrash. The sheets are too white, too clean. Everything is too clean. Too clean and too soft.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy
Kudos: 2





	How can I live when you are gone?

I awake in a sweat. This is the usual way I awake now.

The guns echo in my ears: hold, fire, hold, fire, hold, fire, fire, fire. The air is sawdust and gunpowder as everything splinters to fragments. Splinters of wood and bone. And they fall like hail from the sky and then from all sides.

And everything runs red. Red, our desire and our love now running and trodden through in the gutter, between the cobblestones. Red, the flag is torn to shreds. Red, the blood sweeps through our waistcoats. Red, Enjorlas topples lifelessly over the barricade. Once so full of life, glory and determination never leaving his eyes as his hair bounced in the wind and his smile was wild and inspired every one of us. Enjorlas, my dear friend... my friend... my friends...

 _Enjolras, Grantaire, Feuilly_ \- their names are a mantra in my head that will not be forgotten - _Joly, Courfeyrac, Combeferre_ \- they will not be forgotten - _Jean, Bahorel, Bossuet_ \- I can not let them be forgotten - _little_ _Gavroche, Epoinine_...

My fingers clutch at the sheets and pull them to my chest, against my skin and ribs and my heart beating out of my chest. And I curl in on myself. My legs thrash. The sheets are too white, too clean. Everything is too clean. Too clean and too soft.

Soft. Soft hands, softer than sheets reach for me and try to hold me, but I shake. I shake violently and sob. I weep and weep and the bed is too soft and I all but crawl out of it and fall to my knees on the floor. The painful thud against my knees is something to cling too.

Her soft hands are there again and she is on her knees too, kneeling before me and beside me like a saint. Her hands sooth my forehead. She does not try to touch my body as we have both learnt how I react to that when I’m in this state. Hands, even as gentle as hers, once upon me feel like the bodies and the rubble and the sheets over me feel like the stinking water I can scarcely remember in the day but in the hours of the night creep in like the chill of the wind through an open window; I cannot see it but feel it in my bones.

"Hush, Marius," She whispers and sings a vibrato through my nerves. Her thumbs sweep the sweat from my brow, down my temples, my brow, my cheekbones. Fingers flutter against my eyelashes as she pulls me from myself and draws me to look at her.

And when my eyes can bear to move and let her face grace them, she smiles.

I do not deserve her.

My Cosette, sweet Cosette. Mine and I am hers, and was hers since our eyes first met. But I am not that man, not now, perhaps not ever.

Though through my broken spirit her smile lights up every dark corner. How could it not? I cry and I scream and I shake and she is patient and kind.

And she loves me.

Despite it all, she loves me and praises me each, looks at the small things I barely manage to do and sees some triumph in them. That as if for me to merely get out of bed is a great feat.

Well... isn't it?

I have heard of men ending their lives who've less death than I. Not that I blame or judge them. But she reminds me to think of what I have lost, and that by still being here it only shows how strong I am.

I think it is she who is strong, to be thrust into my pain after hardly knowing the world at all, and taking it all in her stride. She's so graceful with it, as if everything that should cause her doubt and turmoil only makes her hold her head higher.

And I love her.

I love her, I love her, I love her.

And my breathing slows as her fingers ripple through my hair and she coaxes me back onto the bed, doesn't force my body under the covers nor my head under the pillow. She lets me fall onto her lap as she hums song old familiar tune.

I will fall back to sleep again soon and I will not wake until morning.

And tomorrow night this will happen again.

But she will be there, ready to hold the pieces of me together until I find the strength to do it myself.

**Author's Note:**

> so this is what happens when you don't watch or listen to les mis for seven years even though it's one of your favourite musicals and then you watch the all star cast recording and empty chairs gets you as much as it did the first time you heard it and you instantly have to write this as soon as the musical is over. because it would seem all i am able to write now is angst.
> 
> and it's in first person? and present tense?? i never wrote in first person because i wasn't really comfortable reading it or writing in it, and then i was writing rebecca fanfic and well since the original book is written in first person and the main character gets no name other than 'I' I gave in and wrote first person for that and then idk i got so into marius' head that this just came out in both first person and present tense. writing friends don't shoot me for writing in present tense, i never do and i don't know what happened this just came spewing out without my even thinking about it.
> 
> also the 'enjorlas falling over the barricade' comes from the musical and in particular i was thinking about this performance with drew sarich as enjorlas (i love him as enjorlas i don't care if he was an understudy) in the 2006-2007 broadway revival where instead of the set parting to show enjorlas' body on the cart, the whole barricade spins around and shows him fallen and laying on the otherside of the barricade's wall. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tx411a7c8 is the clip that inspired the enjorlas description. marius in this is inspired by rob houchen in the 2019 ' all star' concert.
> 
> it's also been brought to my attention by an american friend of mine that the enjorlas/grantaire interactions are played down in the broadway versions compared to the west end so i'm sorry you guys don't get to see them hug every night.
> 
> also while i was writing this i got slight marius/enjorlas vibes and i have no idea if that is a ship or how popular it is if it is one but i sort of like it? the idea of determined enjorlas trying to get this hopefully romantic to not get himself killed. idk.
> 
> [if you liked the fic or like the idea of marius/enjorlas or les mis in general please come and scream at me on tumblr and support the fic on there](https://emptymasks.tumblr.com/post/623481351238238208/how-can-i-live-when-you-are-gone)


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